English

Topological and geometrical disorder correlate robustly in two-dimensional foams

Soft Condensed Matter 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

A 2D foam can be characterised by its distribution of bubble areas, and of number of sides. Both distributions have an average and a width (standard deviation). There are therefore at least two very different ways to characterise the disorder. The former is a geometrical measurement, while the latter is purely topological. We discuss the common points and differences between both quantities. We measure them in a foam which is sheared, so that bubbles move past each other and the foam is "shuffled" (a notion we discuss). Both quantities are strongly correlated; in this case (only) it thus becomes sufficient to use either one or the other to characterize the foam disorder. We suggest applications to the analysis of other systems, including biological tissues.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0802.4135,
  title  = {Topological and geometrical disorder correlate robustly in two-dimensional foams},
  author = {Catherine Quilliet and Shirin Ataei Talebi and David Rabaud and Jos Kaefer and Simon Cox and François Graner},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0802.4135},
  year   = {2009}
}